30 June 2007

"I can confirm that we believe the incident at Glasgow airport is linked to the events in London yesterday," Constable Rae said at a news conference. "There are clearly similarities and we can confirm that this is being treated as a terrorist incident."

A British government security official said the methods used in the airport attack and Friday's thwarted plots were similar, with all three vehicles carrying large quantities of flammable materials.

Police later arrested two more suspects in the London and Glasgow plots in Cheshire county in northern England, Scotland Yard said early Sunday.

A key member of the Crevice gang was Anthony Garcia. During his trial, an Al-Qaeda supergrass revealed that Garcia’s brother, Lamine Adam, had allegedly wanted to bomb a nightclub and was seeking a formula for explosives.

The supergrass’s testimony was not considered strong enough for prosecution. However, Adam, 26, and his younger brother, Ibrahim, 20, were placed on control orders in February 2006 on the grounds that they planned to kill British soldiers serving abroad.

The two brothers and a friend, Cerie Bullivant, 24, who was put on a control order last July, went on the run six weeks ago. Police think they may have slipped abroad, but they cannot rule out that the trio could still pose a threat within the UK.

-- PINE RIDGE, South Dakota (AP) -- Tribal police Thursday shut down a volunteer blockade aimed at keeping beer out of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where alcoholism is rampant, and arrested three organizers who refused to leave.

Facts don't matter to the lunatic left... you're always gonna end up being a racist, a whatever-o-phobe or a nazi...

Brainwashed by years of Little Big Man propaganda, their eyes blinded by New Age sweetgrass, the average Canadian lefty's tiny conscience -- a wizened chunk of white guilt, junk science and bad history at the best of times -- bursts like the Grinch's heart when you say anything bad about natives.

CN Rail expressed frustration with police for refusing to stop an illegal blockade in Eastern Ontario that disrupted the key train system that transports $100-million worth of goods along the crucial Montreal-Toronto corridor yesterday.

For the third time in 15 months, a blockade forced CN Rail to leave 25 trains sitting idle, while transport trucks were slowed on the highway and nearly 5,000 Via Rail passengers had to change their long-weekend travel plans.

Presumably the OPP figured it was best to wait for Brant to surrender, which he has done in the past, rather than inflame a potentially volatile situation. But they refused to explain the decision.

"All we can say right now is that we'll execute the warrant when it's appropriate," Const. Angie Atkinson said.

Initially it was thought Brant would surrender once the blockades came down. But Brant had no plans to spend the long weekend in jail. Instead, he said he would enjoy Canada Day with his family and then turn himself in mid-week.

Who's running the OPP anyway... Julian Fantino, or Shawn Brant?

**********

FROM THE COMMENTS:

Anonymous said...Did you feel as angry when the farmers blocked the 401 with their tractors?

The Iraqi Aid Association (IAA), a Baghdad-based non-governmental organisation working with displacement, children and youth issues, says dozens of Iraqis have been killed after using the internet to access erotic sites.

Fatah Ahmed, spokesperson for the IAA, said: "We have received information from many sources that militants are operating spies inside internet cafes just to find out who is browsing sites they have deemed offensive to Islam."

Ahmed said most of the killings or abductions happen directly after the victims leave the internet cafes.

A formal transfer of command at Ottawa's Cartier Drill Hall placed the 44-year-old Col. Day in charge of the Forces' tactical and anti-terrorism units, which are in the midst of a 10-year expansion that will see their size doubled.

The Special Operations Forces command, or CANSOFCOM, includes the JTF2 commando unit, a special helicopter squadron, a chemical- and nuclear-weapons unit, and a broader Special Operations Regiment now being built up to a battalion size of about 700 soldiers.

-- GLASGOW, Scotland, June 30 (Reuters) -- A four-wheel-drive vehicle crashed into the main terminal at Glasgow airport on Saturday and exploded in flames, a day after police foiled a possible al Qaeda plot to detonate two car bombs in London.

"It raced across the central reservation and went straight into the building," said taxi driver Ian Crosby outside the terminal.

Crosby said a stocky Asian man had got out of the car and was quickly wrestled to the ground by bystanders.

"It would appear to me to have been a deliberate attack. I think this was a terrorist attack," Crosby said.

The school's principal, Charis Newton-Thompson, and vice-principals Stan Gordon and Silvio Tallevi, were given changed duties earlier this week after Julian Falconer, chairman of an independent safety panel examining the school, reported findings to the director of education for the TDSB.

"We're going to bring some people to Parliament Hill, put a camp there and stay there until we get an answer to resolve the problems that we have in our community," Chief Matchewan said.

The fact that thousands of Canadians will descend on the proposed campsite for this weekend's Canada Day festivities will not deter the chief.

"That's our land there; they have to know that. Those thousands of people are going to know that Parliament Hill is on unceded Algonquian title," he said.

**********UPDATE: CTV aboriginal spinfest

Just finished watching the two lead stories on CTV news. Both stories were about the blockade of the railway lines and the 401 at Deseronto.

As expected, absolutely no mention of Shawn Brant's threats of armed insurrection... merely a softball interview, where Brant, just like Arafat and company, got to speak out of the other side of his mouth.

In both stories, aboriginal law-breaking was characterised solely as an "inconvenience."

CN Rail spokesman Mark Hallman would not discuss revenues the company might have lost when it cancelled its freight trains for the day, but said the company operates 25 trains carrying about $100-million worth of commodities between Montreal and Toronto every day.

At a demonstration outside Queen's Park in Toronto, aboriginal protester Doreen Silversmith slammed the federal government's offer of $125-million to end the 15-month standoff with native protesters in Caledonia, Ont.

“The government can goddamn shove it up their asses,” she said to the cheers of about 400 natives and University of Toronto students.

The discovery of the second bomb, about 20 hours after the first, suggested a co-ordinated and more sophisticated plot than was initially thought — similar to the July 7, 2005 suicide bombings where four bombs exploded within an hour of one another on London's busy transit system.

Hopefully, because police they have these vehicles and devices intact, there will be enough forensic evidence to nail the perpetrators.

Police say they are looking for an Iraqi who went on the run from a control order only 11 days before yesterday's failed bombing attempts. The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, is part of a six-strong cell linked to al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Instead of charging the men in open court and exposing sensitive intelligence, the government imposed control orders, effectively confining them to their homes for 18 hours a day.

He went missing on 18 June in north-west England, and his whereabouts are unknown. He was the second of his group to abscond from a control order.

-- CAIRO, Egypt -- The death of a 12-year-old Egyptian girl at the hands of a doctor performing female circumcision in the country's south has sparked a public outcry and prompted health and religious authorities this week to ban the practice.

The case sparked widespread condemnation and was closely followed in Egyptian papers, which also reported that Shaker had passed out sweets to pupils in her class earlier on the day of her death, to celebrate her good grades.

It also evoked memories of a 1995 CNN television documentary depicting a barber circumcising a 10-year-old girl in a Cairo slum.

Sorry... some aspects of our culture are inarguably superior to the third world.

-- OSLO, June 29 (Reuters) -- Norway took steps on Friday to crack down on circumcision of girls by barring families from travelling abroad if officials suspect they plan to have the procedure done outside the country.

The intervention followed reports in Norwegian media that at least 185 girls from Norway -- daughters of immigrants -- had their genitals cut in just one village in Somalia.

The government said it would refuse passports to families suspected of sending girls abroad to have the procedure carried out. Authorities can also forbid a family from travelling if they suspect the purpose is female circumcision, officials said.

TORONTO AND DESERONTO, ONT. — Ontario Provincial Police, who shut down Canada's busiest highway early Friday morning west of Kingston due to native protesters in the area, have decided to reopen Highway 401.

So what sort of penalty is there for shutting down the busiest transit corridor in the country and threatening an armed battle against the provincial police...

Hours later the OPP issued an arrest warrant for protest leader Shawn Brant on a charge of mischief.

It's like these thugs went out and egged somebody's house.

Mr. Brant told reporters Friday morning that he would be willing to turn himself in later in the day but not before he ”gets to give his kids a hug.”

(E) causes serious interference with or serious disruption of an essential service, facility or system, whether public or private, other than as a result of advocacy, protest, dissent or stoppage of work that is not intended to result in the conduct or harm referred to in any of clauses (A) to (C)

Try this yourself some time... get a bunch of your buddies AND their deer rifles and TRY blockade a four lane highway for a couple of days.

One caveat though... if you're a middle aged white guy with a regular job and a family... the local SWAT Team is gonna drop you like a crazy girlfriend if you don't immediately disarm and assume the position.

**********

When there's a strong horse and a weak horse... insurgents park their loyalty with the one who looks like a winner.

And that's what the aboriginal community is doing right here.

-- TORONTO AND DESERONTO, ONT. -- Ontario Provincial Police shut down Canada's busiest highway early Friday morning west of Kingston due to native protesters in the area, who had earlier blockaded a section of secondary highway and a stretch of nearby railway track on the eve of the National Day of Action.

Friday morning, the Ontario Provincial Police closed Highway 401 both ways between Napanee and Belleville and were diverting traffic north onto Hwy 7 due to native protesters "being in the direct area, for safety reasons," said Sergeant Kristine Rae of the Smith Falls detachment.

I'm sure that's not the way Shawn Brant and his merry band of aboriginal thugs are gonna see it.

This is a coup for the terrorists. They just cut Canada's busiest transportation route and if the OPP are working from the same old playbook... we're gonna have to beg to get it back.

Thursday night, Mr. Brant's protesters lit two bonfires in the middle of the highway near Marysville, Ont., and had also parked pickups trucks, a van and school bus there.

Let's not forget Fidel Brant also claims his troops are armed and ready to shoot.

Friday is about grievances aboriginal communities have with the federal government, not the province, he said.

"I remain hopeful that this national day of action will proceed in a peaceful and respectful way," McGuinty said, adding it will be up to provincial police to deal with any blockades or illegal activity.

28 June 2007

Try doing this with a bunch of your buddies... and see how long it takes the local SWAT team to knock your dick in the dirt.

-- DESERONTO -- Mohawk protesters, who said they had guns and wouldn't back down, began preparations for blockades of the main CN line and Highway 401 near this eastern Ontario town late Thursday, despite widespread calls that an aboriginal day of action be peaceful.

Once again though, being aboriginal confers extra-legal status on these guys.

To no one's surprise, professional agitator and spokes-native Shawn Brant is front and centre...

Mr. Brant said he intended to lead blockades of one or both of the main traffic and rail corridors between Toronto and Montreal starting at midnight Thursday night, or before.

He wouldn't disclose the actual sites, but confirmed that he and others were prepared to “meet force with force” if police got in their way.

“We've made no secret that we have guns within this camp,” he told The Canadian Press in an interview.

This sociopath has apparently got some sort of Billy Jack looptape constantly running through his fevered brain.

Mr. Brant says the time to educate Canadians through peaceful rallies has passed.

By his own very public admission, Shawn Brant is screaming out that he is "armed and dangerous".

-- TORONTO -- Via Rail is suspending service on Friday on the highly travelled Montreal-Toronto and Ottawa-Toronto corridors in anticipation of an aboriginal day of action.

“While we recognize the impact this may have on individual travel plans, the decision was taken after careful consideration of the uncertainty of the situation and the potential risks involved in attempting to operate under such unpredictable conditions.”

If the McGuinty Liberals and the OPP are gonna run for cover as per usual, there's no percentage in VIA trying to go it alone.

-- CANBERRA, Australia -- A boxer who cited his Muslim beliefs in refusing a doping test because he didn't want to expose himself to drug testers was given a two-year ban Thursday by the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority.

ASADA said Omar Al-Shaick failed to provide a urine sample during an unannounced, out-of-competition test in Brisbane on June 13, 2006.

McMullen said Al-Shaick, who now works as an apprentice carpenter, was a deeply religious man but was open to discussing how he might deal with anti-doping tests in the future.

That's a pretty flexible religious stand if you ask me.

Is it possible, just possible... he couldn't afford to take the test, at that moment, for some other reason?

Mr. Suzuki was this year caught running his cross-country climate-change tour from a diesel-powered "rock-star" bus, built for 54, for an eight-man entourage.

And the CBC host has two sizeable homes, despite calling it "disgusting" that the average Canadian's home (most have just one) is larger than that of our grandparents.

And let's not forget that famous McGuinty disregard for the, ah... what's that thing called... oh yeah, the truth.

Calculations using the "terrapass" carbon calculator show that during the last three years of his eight-year tenure as president and CEO of the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, Mr. McGuinty was responsible, through work affairs alone, for more than double the carbon emissions than the average Canadian emits at home and work combined. (All records before 2000 were, according to the NRTEE, destroyed.)

27 June 2007

"The findings are disturbing and indicate that the Correctional Service has not rigorously fulfilled its mandate to keep all inmates safe and act on recommendations related to inmate deaths," said correctional investigator Howard Sapers.

Call me wacky... but how about, we move the safety of the general law-abiding citizenry to the top of this list? Isn't that really the primary function of a prison... to lock up the dangerous predators?

If Clifford Olsen and Paul Bernardo and the rest of the murderers, rapists and thieves choose to off themselves or guzzle each other up... well, that's just fine by me.

While we're at it, let's take away their computers, televisions and nautilus machines... prison isn't supposed to be entertaining.

It's time get back to bottom-line basics... 'cos coddling these assholes is just a one way street to more heartbreak.

Robbie Robinson, a retired architect whose backyard abuts Broten's Etobicoke home, says in a submission to the OMB that he fears the construction of the garage, which will include an auto lift, will be higher than a neighbouring home and jeopardize a 14-metre tree that sits between those two properties.

Robinson told Sun Media that Broten and her husband routinely have four vehicles parked at their home -- a hybrid SUV, a station wagon, a sports car and an older car

In a letter to the OMB, Robinson says that the proposed garage would have walls that are 14 feet high and a ridge that is 19 feet high, almost twice what the bylaw allows.

Minister Broten is apparently not available for comment, but an underling was quick to attempt to put a warm, fuzzy face on the massive automotive edifice.

Anne O'Hagan, a spokesman for Broten, said the minister was not available for an interview yesterday, but she told Sun Media that the complainant is not privy to the plan.

-- KATMANDU, Nepal -- More than 1,500 Nepalese women have signed up with private firms to train for a possible career with the British army after it allowed them to join the Brigade of Gurkhas for the first time in nearly two centuries.

Twenty-year-old undergraduate Sirjana Rana said she would barely get $150 a month in Nepal after completing her studies. But if she joined the British army now, her wages could be 10 times higher.

Gurkha soldiers, a tribe from Nepal's Himalayan foothills known for their fierce combat abilities, have been serving in the British army since 1815.

Canada's own version of Ismail Haniyeh is still making vague threats about disrupting "something or other" this holiday weekend.

-- DESERONTO, ONT. -- Mohawk protester Shawn Brant has emerged as a lonesome voice of hard-line native militancy, plotting major economic disruption as his way of making Canada sit up and listen.

Any move Friday to block thousands of commuters on Highway 401 or the CN rail line will depend on last-minute circumstances, police presence and safety issues, Mr. Brant said.

"We're going to have that expression of strength and solidarity across this country," he said in an interview at the quarry he occupied on disputed land last March near Deseronto, west of Kingston.

"Then we'll step back and say: 'You absorb this.' Because the next time we come out, it's going to be harder, it's going to be longer and it's going to have an impact on this economy that Canada can't imagine at this point.

"We've had enough."

Well Shawn, apart from the sexual imagery... you took the words right out of my mouth.

My guess is though, that Dalton McGuinty will let this one, whatever it turns out to be, slide too.

Which can only help the Conservative's chances in the coming Ontario elections.

Iran, one of the largest oil exporters in the world, has started to ration gasoline in response to a possible blockade of the country in retaliation for it's hardline stance on developing nuclear weapons.

And unlike here in Canada, citizens aren't shy about showing their displeasure.

At least one petrol station has been set on fire in the Iranian capital, Tehran, after the government announced fuel rationing for private motorists.

Iranians were given only two hours' notice of the move that limits private drivers to 100 litres of fuel a month.

Despite its huge energy reserves Iran lacks refining capacity, forcing it to import about 40% of its petrol.

I'm thinking... if you're awash in oil billions and you still can't manage to refine enough gasoline to keep your own citizens on the road... maybe you really shouldn't be foolin' around with nuclear fission.

-- BEIJING, June 27 (Reuters) -- China has seized two fruit shipments from the United States and warned it would apply greater scrutiny to U.S. cargoes, even as it tightens the screws on manufacturers of unsafe food at home.

The country's quarantine bureau said in a statement on its Web site that quality inspectors had detained U.S. shipments of orange pulp, produced by Modern Skill Co. Ltd, and of preserved apricot from Mariani Packing because they contained high levels of bacteria, mildew and sulphur dioxide.

"When dealing with food from America, local quarantine bureaux should tighten their procedures," said the statement seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

26 June 2007

Isn't it funny, how simply bringing unpleasant facts to light... also calls out the yappy little dogs of the loony left.

I guess I don't understand how the Liberals longtime policy of sweeping this stuff under the politically correct carpet... was ever supposed to help resolve any of these issues.

In the province's 2005 Report on the Health Status of Aboriginal People, Dr. Chandrakant Shah reported that 50 per cent of aboriginal people living off-reserve smoke, with rates as high as 70 per cent in the late 1990s.

Forty-three per cent engage in binge drinking and 28 per cent use illegal drugs. Sixty-three per cent are considered overweight or obese, compared to 39 per cent of Canadians. Cancers in both sexes are on the rise, and in 1999, 10.7 per cent of all HIV/AIDS cases in Canada were aboriginal.

The truth is that nothing will ever turn around, without aboriginals first, admitting there is a problem and second, admitting they bear responsibility for properly raising their own children.

Obviously, this also entails not hiding behind the Aboriginals are Victims industry.

"Governments really can't do anything," he said. "They can't go in and change things. The change has to come from within, a desire to do something for the community, followed by more of a collaborative working arrangement between governments and First Nations communities. We can't just throw money at it."

The suicide rate in aboriginal communities is three to four times greater, as are the rates of most mental illnesses. At least 75 per cent of aboriginal women have experienced family violence, and an estimated 20,697 aboriginals in Ontario are currently suffering from a major mental disorder, most commonly depression, anxiety and substance abuse.

Source: Report on the Health Status of Aboriginal People in Ontario, 2005, by Dr. Chandrakant P. Shah.

Could kill you... just something to think about if someone offers you a deal on cheap Chinese-made tires...

Federal officials have told a small New Jersey importer to recall 450,000 radial tires for pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans after the company disclosed that its Chinese manufacturer had stopped including a safety feature that prevented the tires from separating.

Wait, it gets better...

Ms. Hopkins said the agency’s top officials were “outraged” that Foreign Tire Sales’ executives waited more than two years to pass on their suspicions about problems with the tires.

The company first suspected problems in October 2005. Almost a year later, in September 2006, the Chinese manufacturer, Hangzhou Zhongce Rubber, a former state-owned company based in eastern China, acknowledged that a gum strip that prevents the tread from separating was left out of the manufacturing process.

My wife, who is a much more tolerant person than I could ever hope to be, just said to me "Isn't it ironic that an event that was originally designed to promote acceptance of the gay community, has turned into such a freak show."

As per usual, she nailed it.

Now, unless I'm mistaken, that seems to be the message our own Blogging Tory Diogenes Borealis is sending out as well...

Another Gay Pride weekend has come and gone, and once more I cringe with embarrassment when I see the images of the various pride parades on TV and in print.

In the National Post today, the only coverage of Toronto's event was a photo of a semi-naked man wearing a studded leather jock strap (and not much else) entertaining a crowd with his package.

It must be difficult for any gay person who doesn't aspire to participate in this uber-public celebration of sexual buffoonery... to be tarred yearly with this very sticky brush.

A group of CPR pensioners protested yesterday plans to allow furniture giant Leon’s to move into the historic CPR roundhouse instead of establishing a large railway museum.

The city’s Culture Division hired a developer to look for tenants for the building, which is on the city’s waterfront by the CN Tower, and Leon’s has signed on the dotted line to move in by the fall of 2008.

How much unaudited money d'ya figure Toronto City Council has showered on Caribana over the years? And why is this railway museum initiative deemed unworthy?

Our railroads may just be the single most important logistical factor in turning Canada into the amazing country that it is today.

25 June 2007

-- WASHINGTON -- Researchers studying Neanderthal DNA say it should be possible to construct a complete genome of the ancient hominid despite the degradation of DNA over time.

Debate has raged for years about whether there is any relationship between Neanderthals and modern humans. Some researchers believe that Neanderthals were simply replaced by early modern humans, while others argue the two groups may have interbred.

Sequencing the genome of Neanderthals, who lived in Europe until about 30,000 years ago, could shed some light on that question.

Now I've probably pissed off my more religious BT brethren here... and that got me thinking.

You piss off a devout Muslim and he wants to kill your lousy infidel ass... you piss off a North American Evangelical Christian... he just wants to pray for your soul.

One in 10 aboriginal children now lands in foster care, compared to one in 200 for non-aboriginal children, the AFN said. There are currently three times as many children in foster care as there were in residential schools.

While some figures show First Nations youngsters account for as much as 40 per cent of the children in Canada's foster care system, the number of Mohawk children in care here is proportionate to communities off the reserve.

-- TORONTO -- Ontario has become the first jurisdiction in North America to offer HIV tests that provide results in just 60 seconds and will double the number of sites across the province where anonymous tests are available, Health Minister George Smitherman announced yesterday.

24 June 2007

When people tell you not to drink the water while traveling in foreign countries, trust me... they're not kidding.

-- NEW DELHI, June 25 (Reuters) -- Within sight of Delhi's gleaming new metro train, Nawal Kishore slips the body of a baby into the waters of the Yamuna, one of the world's filthiest rivers.

It's just another day at work for the 40-year-old man, who has been disposing of the bodies of three or four children, rich and poor, in the polluted waters of the Yamuna or in the equally dirty river bank every day for the last decade.

Most Hindus cremate their dead, but crematoria across India usually turn away the corpses of babies and children under three, citing a tradition which says they should either be buried or submerged in "holy" rivers.

Maybe somebody should tell Al Gore... there's more than one problem facing humanity in this big, bad world.

Same G & M link, without any explanation, now goes to this Michael Valpy article that says the vote went the other way...

A razor-thin majority of Canada's Anglican bishops on Sunday overrode the wishes of their laity and clergy and vetoed a resolution that would have allowed for blessings in church settings of committed homosexual unions.

It needed a triple majority of bishops, clergy and laity to pass. The laity voted 79 to 59 in favour and clergy voted 63 to 53, but bishops voted 21 to 19 against.

Canadian Anglicans, meeting at their General Synod governing convention, voted by the slimmest of margins to defeat a proposal that would have permitted church blessing rites for gay couples.

However, on the same day, the synod – also by a narrow margin – agreed that such blessings are “not in conflict with the core doctrine” of the church. Much of the sixth day of the synod was taken up with debate on the two questions, with dozens of people approaching microphones in the plenary hall to voice emotional opinions.

Jack Layton's probably frothing at the mouth, but let's face it... if you weren't going to give this guy the big jump... then who would actually swing?

-- BAGHDAD -- Two decades after Iraq's military laid waste to Kurdish villages, the Iraqi High Tribunal on Sunday sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as “Chemical Ali,” and two others to death for their roles in the bloody campaign against the restive ethnic minority.

He's certainly received more due process than anyone would have while Saddam was in power.

"It's not good, he's a quadriplegic and it's permanent, that's what I'm advised," Toronto Police Det. Reg Wright of 14 Division said yesterday, adding the teen was hanging out with some older friends and was "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

It's a shame that Belinda Stronach has breast cancer... it's not something I would wish upon my worst enemy... but I know 324,486 people, in this particular instance, who aren't going to be all that impressed.

Let's see what Statistics Canada has to say...

There were 324,486 cancer deaths over the five-year period. Of this total, 171,655 were males and 152,831 were females. Female deaths from cancer increased at a slightly faster rate, 8.5%, than did male deaths, which rose 5.4%.

In 2004, 66,947 people died from cancer, up 6.8% from 2000.

My guess is the statistics for 2007 are gonna come in somewhere near 70,000 people... not one of them any less special than Belinda.

Now maybe... just maybe... if the Fiberals had taken the 2 billion dollars, that's 2,000 bags of 1 million dollars apiece... and used it to fund cancer research... instead of the asinine Farmer Bob Rifle Registry... Belinda and some of the non-glitterati citizens in Canada would have been way better off in the here and now.

So far, the operation has resulted in 55 dead terrorists and 23 captured, while the citizens of Baqubah have increased their assistance to the Coalition. They want AQI out of Diyala, thanks to the brutality of the foreign fighters. The Iraqis have no more use for al-Qaeda than anyone else but terrorists and their sympathizers do.

Just turned tail and ran. I guess not everybody's ready to give it up for "the big guy" just yet.

Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking American commander in Iraq, told reporters that leaders of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia had been alerted to the Baquba offensive by widespread public discussion of the American plan to clear the city before the attack began.

He portrayed the Qaeda leaders’ escape as cowardice, saying that “when the fight comes, they leave,” abandoning “midlevel” Qaeda leaders and fighters to face the might of American troops — just, he said, as they did in Falluja.

They went instead, with the video closeups of soldiers grieving family members slumped over their loved one's caskets.

So what actually happened today?

NATO's International Security Assistance Force said about 60 insurgents attempted to attack Afghan and ISAF forces Friday in the Bermel district of Paktika province, near the Pakistan border.

The insurgents fired on aircraft, and NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces returned fire, killing about 60 fighters, an ISAF statement said.

On CTV, it's all Canadians dying and families mourning, all the time... the implication being that we are being beaten senseless by the noble warlike Taliban.

That's sure not how the military sees the situation.

Suicide attacks in the eastern part of Afghanistan where the U.S. military operates increased some 230 per cent in the first half of 2007 compared with the same period in 2006, U.S. spokesman Major Chris Belcher said.

Col. Schweitzer said the increase shows the Taliban is less able to launch large-scale attacks.

“That to me is not the barometer that it's getting bad,” he said of the rise. “What would be the barometer to me that it's getting bad is if they do large scale attacks everywhere and they're being effective.”

But don't try tell that to CTV.

They got their closeups of grieving mothers... again.

One last note... resident spin doctor/reporter Bob Fife, commenting on Prime Minister Harper's statement that no extension of the mission would be granted without the support of Parliament... was portrayed as some scheming Machiavellian ploy by Harper.

Even when you give the leftbots what they want, they try to twist it into something horrible.

The Afghan story isn't exclusively and proprietarily about Canadian soldiers who have died.

It's about why the troops are there, what they're hoping to accomplish, their efforts to secure a benighted country and extend the rule of law, the urgency of denying Al Qaeda the strategic foothold they once enjoyed.

It's about promises made at the very top of international leadership, by the United Nations and NATO, by custodians of redevelopment who said to Afghanistan: We won't abandon you again.

22 June 2007

A group of Pakistani religious leaders led by a pro-Taliban figure has said it will bestow a title on Osama bin Laden in response to Britain's decision to grant a knighthood to Salman Rushdie.

Hey guys... if there's some sort of problem here... how exactly does holding an impromptu "Academy Awards of Jihad" set things right? This silly piece of tit-for-tat theatre has all the social dynamics of a nursery school recess, without, I might add, any of the mostly good intentions.

Allama Tahir Ashrafi, head of the Pakistan Ulema Council, said on Thursday that the group would give bin Laden the title Saifullah.

The name means "Sword of God" and would be given to the al-Qaeda leader for "serving Muslims by waging jihad against infidels".

British Muslims on Friday joined in protests against Britain's decision to honour Salman Rushdie with a knighthood, while a hardline Islamic cleric in Iran declared that the 1989 religious edict calling for the author to be killed remained in place.

"Obviously it sends a very positive message about diversity," Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd said of the police board's decision.

Well, maybe the chief can jazz up all their technology... cos' it doesn't sound like he's much of a street cop.

Much of the officer's career has been spent on the technical side of policing. Among other achievements, he created the VPD's first website in 1997, and oversaw the force's transition to a new radio system in 1998.

Of course, maybe I shouldn't be so critical... apparently he's the most qualified and sought after leader in Canadian law enforcement.

"The police board has gone through an exhaustive process, we've searched the whole country for the best person for the job," Mr. Sullivan said.